The new version of Internet Explorer in Longhorn 4051 is version 6.05.4051.0. Even though Longhorn is many years away (if ever!) the folks at Microsoft have realized that people want more from their browser, due to popularity of the competition, ex. Mozilla. UPDATE: Longhorn 4051 review.

Blocking Pop-Ups
This version of IE fully supports blocking all of those pop-ups the internet
has to offer. It's very easy to access, and
stands out on the tools menu. There are
more options available to this
instead of just blocking some of the pop-ups available at the bottom of the
privacy tab in internet options. Here you can exclude some
sites, or make every site you ever encounter blocked. Very handy if you
want the pop up on www.weather.com to ask you for you zip code, but want
everything else to be blocked.

Clear Browsing RecordsDisk Cleanup made a very feeble attempt at this. When you are online,
there are .temp files, temporary internet files, cookies, history, passwords,
form data, and internet address that are stored on your computer. Disk
Cleanup doesn't get even half of those. Microsoft has implemented this new
Clear Browsing Records option under
tools to do this quite nicely. It even
prompts you and gives you
a nice explanation of what it will do.

Download ManagerAll major internet browsers have had this feature for some time now.
Netscape, Mozilla, Opera, and Safari. I think even Konqueror and whatever
the GTK+ based GNOME browser is have it. Now Microsoft has put it in
Windows. Nothing really big here, except that managing a
lot of downloads at one time is
so much better and you can prioritize the
downloads so the one you want first gets the most bandwidth.

Small ChangesThe only other small changes that I have seen is that the default history
has went from 20 days down to 14. The setup of the menus are just a little
bit different, mostly due to the new features that were added. Also of
interest is the new Favorites flashing
star in the right hand corner of every IE and Windows Explorer window now.
Right beside it is also a Search button.

Longhorn is shaping up to be an exciting release with many new features.
Be sure to check out my other page with info on other aspects of build 4051 from
PDC.